They moved down the street, with five little Wilkinsons trailing along behind, and Edith was uncomfortably aware that Joe’s eyes were upon her.

“You don’t look well,” he said at last.  “You’re wearing yourself out taking care of your mother, Edith.”

“I don’t do much for her.”

“You’d say that, of course.  You’re very unselfish.”

“Am I?” She laughed a little, but the words touched her.  “Don’t think I’m better than I am, Joe.”

“You’re the most wonderful girl in the world.  I guess you know how I feel about that.”

“Don’t Joe!”

But at that moment a very little Wilkinson fell headlong and burst into loud, despairing wails.  Joe set her on her feet, brushed her down with a fatherly hand, and on her refusal to walk further picked her up and carried her.  The obvious impossibility of going on with what he had been saying made him smile sheepishly.

“Can you beat it?” he said helplessly, “these darn kids—!” But he held the child close.

At the next corner he turned toward home.  Edith stopped and watched his valiant young back, his small train of followers.  He was going to be very sad when he knew, poor Joe, with his vicarious fatherhood, his cluttered, noisy, anxious life.

Life was queer.  Queer and cruel.

From the doctor’s office, the waiting room lined with patient figures, she went on.  She had a very definite plan in mind, but it took all her courage to carry it through.  Outside the Benedict Apartments she hesitated, but she went in finally, upheld by sheer determination.

The chair at the telephone desk was empty, but Sam remembered her.

“He’s out, miss,” he said.  “He’s out most all the time now, with the election coming on.”

“What time does he usually get in?”

“Sometimes early, sometimes late,” said Sam, watching her.  Everything pertaining to Louis Akers was of supreme interest those days to the Benedict employees.  The beating he had received, the coming election, the mysterious young woman who had come but once, and the black days that had followed his return from the St. Elmo —­out of such patchwork they were building a small drama of their own.  Sam was trying to fit in Edith’s visit with the rest.

The Benedict was neither more moral nor less than its kind.  An unwritten law kept respectable women away, but the management showed no inclination to interfere where there was no noise or disorder.  Employees were supposed to see that no feminine visitors remained after midnight, that was all.

“You might go up and wait for him,” Sam suggested.  “That is, if it’s important.”

“It’s very important.”

He threw open the gate of the elevator hospitably.

At half past ten that night Louis Akers went back to his rooms.  The telephone girl watched him sharply as he entered.

“There’s a lady waiting for you, Mr. Akers.”